Nobody would argue that 1929 was a year of classic movies. Amongst the flotsam and jetsam however there's APPLAUSE and a few other good ones..... and this as well - almost. What a difference a top director and screenwriter can make!

This isn't a gangster film, it's an intelligently written character study and in-depth look into the mind of a mobster. You find writer Jules Furthman's name on virtually every other classic Hollywood picture of the 20s, 30s and 40s. His style was quality and his skill was creating believable engaging stories with real genuine characters. His story was further adapted by H Mankiewicz - who wrote the scripts for the probably the other half of the classics from this period. Needless to say - this is well written with fascinating and deeply faceted characters.

Josef von Sternberg directed this which by the look of it was his fiftieth talkie. Surely it's impossible that this was his first sound film? Being made in 1929, it's still a little experimental, not quite everything works so this is not one of his best pictures. Nevertheless he creates a brooding almost surreal atmosphere with real tension. That style intensifies significantly in the latter part of the film on death row which has an almost dream like feel about it.

The story is tense, the characters are believable, the production is innovative but this is not a perfect film. To enable clear sound recording, some but not all of the actors speak very slowly which sounds especially weird when the actor they're talking with is speaking normally. Actors had their own individual vocal coaches then with different techniques thus the inconsistency and maybe not being a native English speaker, von Sternberg probably didn't notice the subtle differences.

As great a director as he was, von Sternberg was given the impossible task of trying to make Fay Wray seem like a proper actress. Not even he could do that and predictably she's absolutely dreadful. As always she just projects that limp, whining and insipid expression to convey whatever emotion she's trying to express.

Whether she's pretending to be a hard as nails gangster's moll or a reformed, sweet and vulnerable fragile young thing she's that same bland, shallow character. Not only can't she act but in this she doesn't appear to be able to speak English - what on earth is that accent! She's meant to be a girl from the streets so why is she doing history's worst impression of Queen Mary? That two men could be besotted with this dull sour-faced non-entity completely stretches all credibility.

This is an odd little film whose off-beat humour goes a considerable way -- although not really quite far enough -- to excuse dodgy dialogue, perfunctory plotting and some very laborious line readings from the cast, from the big names down to the bit-part players. Richard Arlen, in particular, gives a fine performance... in those scenes alone where he can rely on silent-screen acting technique and isn't required to deliver any spoken lines, which unfortunately isn't very many of them! Fay Wray isn't terribly convincing here either in her role as hard-as-nails gangster's girl or as lovely and vulnerable sweetheart, and the film as a whole seems to veer unevenly between spoof and taking itself seriously. As a result, I found it hard to care very much about the fate of any of the characters, in particular the romantic leads. George Bancroft pretty much carries the picture single-handed as the eponymous gangster (he was Oscar-nominated for this role), with some success; but again he seems to be uncertain whether to play for straight-out melodrama or hammy spoof, and to be struggling with the transition to sound.

The director's real interest appears to be in the Death Row scenes, where much of the humour occurs (there is a running gag where the other convicts comment on the action with close-harmony renditions of appropriate popular songs), and much of the rest of the film is merely a set-up to get to this point. (The bank robbery sequence is particularly perfunctory and confusing: frankly, if the charge hadn't been spelt out subsequently in dialogue, I wouldn't have had the faintest idea what Bob was actually condemned for.)

It is worth persevering with "Thunderbolt" beyond the opening sequences, which are particularly laboured -- the film does get a bit better later on -- but this is nobody's lost masterpiece, I'm afraid. To see Richard Arlen do better, try "Beggars of Life"; to see Fay Wray, try "The Most Dangerous Game"; to see George Bancroft, try "Underworld". To see a better early talkie, try Rouben Mamoulian's "Applause" (1929).

Von Sternberg's original 95-minutes cut was never released. Instead Zukor and Lasky ordered the movie to be cut down to a more exhibitor-friendly length – which turned out to be 85 minutes. So if you're looking for smooth continuity, you won't find it in this film which proceeds via a series of jumps until both the principals find themselves in the Death House. Needless to say, the scissors were not taken to George Bancroft's scenes. In fact, not a single frame was removed from these scenes, which was good in a way because it meant that the really enjoyable Curtis Mosby-Theresa Harris nightclub footage was also retained in full. However, the movie is definitely off balance (and even a little difficult to follow, let alone swallow) until we arrive at the Death House where the rhythm finally (and unexpectedly) settles down and even allows humor (of all things!) to be injected into the play. Nonetheless, if a comedian like Tully Marshall seems a strange choice for a Death House warden (Tully had played serious roles – and played them well – but here is definitely cast as the comic relief), George is always on top of his material and so totally in control that he can even make the plot twists sound credible and his final scenes unexpectedly moving. He is helped out here by Richard Arlen, an actor who started at the top, giving incredibly gripping performances in such films as Wings, Beggars of Life and The Virginian and then gradually working his way down to the Pine-Thomas side of Poverty Row and finally the formula westerns of A.C. Lyles. As for Fay Wray, I would use the adjective, "disappointing". Her nondescript portrayal would be more tolerable had she been more attractively dressed and presented. As it is, one wonders why the charismatic Thunderbolt is so possessive of such an average-looking girl who is also so totally lacking in personality. Opposites attract, I guess!